Digital lighting technologies, i.e., illumination based on semiconductor light sources, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), offer a viable alternative to traditional fluorescent, HID, and incandescent lamps. Functional advantages and benefits of LEDs include high energy conversion and optical efficiency, durability, lower operating costs, and many others. Recent advances in LED technology have provided efficient and robust full-spectrum lighting sources that enable a variety of lighting effects in many applications. Some of the fixtures embodying these sources feature a lighting module, including one or more LEDs capable of producing different colors, e.g., red, green, and blue, as well as a processor for independently controlling the output of the LEDs in order to generate a variety of colors and color-changing lighting effects, for example, as discussed in detail in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,016,038 and 6,211,626, incorporated herein by reference.
Flexible lighting apparatus such as lighting tape, lighting strips or lighting ropes may include one or more light sources disposed on or within a flexible substrate. The flexible substrate may be stretched and/or cut, e.g., for artistic effect and/or for custom installation. Flexible lighting apparatus may be used to for various purposes, such as illuminating a ceiling recess, illuminating the perimeter of a picture frame or window, illuminating a walkway, illuminating the top of a cabinet, and so forth. It may be possible to independently control one or more properties of light emitted by one or more light sources of a flexible lighting apparatus using various mechanisms, such as by operating a portable computing device to communicate with a lighting system bridge. However, there is a need in the art to provide other means for independently controlling individual light sources, or groups of light sources, as well as for adaptively controlling light emission based on one or more lengths of the flexible substrate itself.